Intravenous (IV) tubes, enteral feeding tubes, blood transfusion tubes, and other fluid-carrying tubes are often used to deliver IV fluids, milk, feeding formulas, blood, and other fluids to infants, elderly person, and other patients. Because these fluids are often collected in advance and refrigerated, they must be warmed before given to patients.
Fluid warming devices have been developed for this purpose. One conventional type of fluid warming device has one or more heated wells or chambers in which fluid storage bags are placed to heat the fluids in the bags before the fluids are provided to patients. Another type of fluid warming device includes a heated enclosure through which a fluid tube is threaded so that fluids in the tube are heated as they pass through the heated enclosure.
Both of the above-described types of fluid warming devices are often ineffective because they fail to maintain the temperature of fluids after the fluids exit the devices. To compensate for such temperature drops, the warming devices must heat the fluids to higher than needed temperatures. But unnecessarily high temperatures may negatively break down nutrients and medication properties in the fluids and may damage the tubes and introduce foreign particles from the tubes into the fluids. Higher heating temperatures can also deliver fluids that are too warm, especially when delivered with shorter tubes, because the fluids don't have time to cool down enough after exiting the warming devices.